delegating-to-new-relic-agent

ryancnelson's avatarfrom ryancnelson

Recognize New Relic queries and delegate to specialized sub-agent to avoid context pollution

⭐32stars🔀5forks📁View on GitHub🕐Updated Oct 23, 2025
[Monitoring]

When & Why to Use This Skill

This Claude skill optimizes New Relic observability workflows by intelligently delegating monitoring tasks to specialized sub-agents. It prevents context pollution in the main session, reduces operational costs, and ensures high-precision data retrieval for NRQL queries, alerts, and logs without exposing complex API mechanics.

Use Cases

  • Incident Response: Quickly identify active critical alerts and system health status during production outages to accelerate resolution.
  • Log Analysis: Search and filter New Relic logs for specific error codes or transaction traces to debug microservice issues efficiently.
  • Performance Monitoring: Execute NRQL queries to track key metrics such as average response times, throughput, and error rates across applications.
  • Observability Governance: Review and manage drop rules or log filters to optimize data ingestion costs and maintain monitoring hygiene.
nameDelegating to New Relic Agent
descriptionRecognize New Relic queries and delegate to specialized sub-agent to avoid context pollution
keywordsnewrelic, nrql, monitoring, alerts, apm, logs, drop-rules, observability, delegate, agent
when_to_useWhen user mentions "newrelic", "nrql", "alerts", "drop rules", or asks to query/search New Relic monitoring data. ALWAYS delegate to sub-agent.
version1.0.0

Delegating to New Relic Agent

Core Principle

Never handle New Relic operations directly. Always delegate to a specialized sub-agent to keep your context clean and costs low.

Recognition Patterns

Delegate when user says:

  • "query newrelic for..."
  • "show me nrql results"
  • "list drop rules"
  • "any alerts firing?"
  • "search newrelic logs"
  • "what applications are monitored?"
  • "verify this nrql query"
  • Any mention of: newrelic, nrql, monitoring, alerts, apm, drop-rules, observability

How to Delegate

Use the Task tool with a specialized prompt:

Task(
  subagent_type: "general-purpose",
  description: "Query New Relic monitoring",
  prompt: "<full agent instructions from AGENT-INSTRUCTIONS.md>"
)

Agent Prompt Template

When delegating, include:

  1. The complete agent instructions (see AGENT-INSTRUCTIONS.md)
  2. The user's specific request
  3. Clear output format requirements

Example:

You are a New Relic monitoring specialist. Your job is to query New Relic using shell wrappers and return clean results.

<AGENT INSTRUCTIONS HERE>

USER REQUEST: Show me active alerts

Return a clean summary with:
- Alert severity
- Entity names
- Alert conditions
- Status

After Agent Returns

  1. Present results cleanly to user
  2. Offer follow-up if relevant (e.g., "Would you like to see logs for that service?")
  3. Don't expose mechanics (NerdGraph, GraphQL, auth, etc.) to user

Benefits

  • ✅ Main context stays clean
  • ✅ Cheaper queries (sub-agent uses less expensive model)
  • ✅ Specialized knowledge isolated
  • ✅ Scalable pattern for other monitoring services

Example Flow

User: "show me active alerts"

Main Assistant: [Recognizes New Relic query]
              → Invokes Task tool with agent instructions
              → Agent runs monitoring-alerts wrapper
              → Agent returns formatted results

Main Assistant: "You have 2 active alerts:

                CRITICAL: federated-graphql - High error rate
                WARNING: nginx-gateway - Response time elevated

                Would you like details on either of these?"

Common Query Types

NRQL Queries:

  • "query logs for errors"
  • "count transactions"
  • "average response time"

Drop Rules:

  • "show drop rules"
  • "list log filters"
  • "verify nrql before dropping"

Alerts:

  • "any alerts?"
  • "critical alerts"
  • "what's alerting?"

Applications:

  • "list monitored apps"
  • "find nginx service"

Logs:

  • "search logs for 502"
  • "nginx error logs"

Red Flags

DON'T:

  • ❌ Try to run monitoring-* scripts yourself
  • ❌ Construct NerdGraph GraphQL queries in main session
  • ❌ Load detailed New Relic API knowledge
  • ❌ Handle authentication directly
  • ❌ Parse complex monitoring data structures

DO:

  • ✅ Immediately delegate on New Relic keywords
  • ✅ Trust the sub-agent's results
  • ✅ Present clean summaries to user
  • ✅ Suggest relevant follow-up queries

Version History

  • 1.0.0 (2025-10-15): Initial delegation skill created to reduce context pollution